Damascus University Journal, Vol.26 No.1+2, 2010
Ayid Sharyan
Comparative Literature:
Its Implications for Yemeni Learners of
English*
Dr. Ayid Sharyan*
Abstract
This paper deals with Comparative Literature (CL) as it can be
employed in Teaching Literature. After surveying the importance of CL
as a whole, it proposes that CL can enhance teaching literature to Yemeni
learners of English. The paper is divided into four sections: 1.0
Introduction that shows CL as a rich source of learning.
1.1. Comparative Literature: Theoretical Background attempts to bring
theory and practice together. 2. 0. Comparative Literature In
Practice concentrates on utilising CL in teaching-cum-learning
situations. 2. 1.
1.2. Teaching Comparative Literature to Yemeni Learners of English
focuses on real examples from the field of teaching. 2. 2. Examples
Of Comparative Literature are elaborated examples that can be used
in teaching novel to Yemeni students.
*
This is a revised and extended version of the paper presented at the Symposium on: English
Literature Teaching In Yemen: Problems and Prospects (19-20 May 2003), Faculty of Arts, Ibb
University.
* University Education Development Centre, Assoc Dept of English, Faculty of Education, Sana’a
University, Yemen.
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Comparative Literature: Its Implications for Yemeni Learners of English
1.3. 3.0. Conclusion emphasises the possibility of intentional use of CL
as a method of teaching literature that helps understanding L2 and L1
literature to enhance mastering L2.
(Keywords: Comparative Literature, teaching literature, Yemeni
students, Yemen, Sharyan.
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Ayid Sharyan
1.0 Introduction
“Oh, East is East, and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet”
-Kipling
This line from "The Ballad of East and West" by Rudyard Kipling
(1865- 1936) highlights the saliency of comparison which has been the
time-honoured practice of examining things whether in literature,
anthropology, politics, religion, linguistics or socio-linguistics and so on.
Comparison involves ways of examining things by someone. It intends to
bring out similarities and dissimilarities; to unite more than divide; to find
unity in diversity so as to develop a sense of tolerance. In literature,
comparatists seek to discover bonds and ties in the apparently dissimilar
works, pertaining to two societies, two cultures across time (Sharyan,
2006). This sort of comparative survey is known as comparative literature
(CL).
CL as an academic discipline is based on comparison like any other
field that employs comparison. CL is concerned with the relationship
between genres of literature whether they are new or old. These
relationships may include two or more literatures (Chevrel, 1989). One
culture may be a giver, the other a receiver (the French school of CL).
This helps to understand the characteristics and development of this
literature or that. It helps also in understanding the affinities between the
varied kinds of literature and the foreign influence on the local literature
(Al-Qamri, 1991).
Comparative studies thus attempt to demonstrate that different
fields of knowledge relate to each other in one way or the other. Teachers
often give assignments to compare-cum-contrast essays where students
are to pinpoint the similarities and differences in the literary text/s. This is
based on the assumption that one understands better the intended goal of
the involved texts if one is able to compare, analyse and synthesize the
piece of work. Such comparison can be on the basis of similar texts from
the target language. This paper goes beyond this to compare the native
with the target literature to use what is available with students to ensure
self-involvement in mastering or identifying with the text they read. With
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Comparative Literature: Its Implications for Yemeni Learners of English
this, learners attempt the target as well as the native literature; this shows
that CL is essential for teaching. And this is more demanding for the
teacher who needs previous knowledge of Arabic literature as well as
English to obtain fruitful results. Without such a previous knowledge, a
teacher of drama for Yemeni students is to face some challenges because
drama is not part of Arabic Literature till the 20th century. Being aware of
the absence of the art in the students’ background is of great help to the
teacher to handle appropriately the building blocks of drama (e.g. the art
of drama, theatre, stage direction, soliloquy, hero, tragic flaw, etc.) to
ensure better understating of the text in question.
1.1 Comparative Literature: Theoretical Background
For some critics like T.S. Eliot, literature is to be seen and
examined only by comparison with other literary works. He said in his
well-known article “Tradition and the Individual Talent”:
No poet, no artist of any art, has his
complete meaning alone. His significance,
his appreciation is the appreciation of his
relation to the dead poets and artists. You
cannot value him alone; you must set him,
for contrast and comparison, among the
dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetics,
not merely historical, criticism.
This shows that literature is not created in isolation. The proper
way of studying literature is to examine each literary text against another
either in the same culture or from other culture/s. Without CL, it will be
difficult to understand Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), e.g. his volume Al
Araaf, particularly if the word Al Araaf is not in the English dictionary.
Very often Poe used some words that sound like Arabic as titles of his
poems, e.g. Al Araaf, Ulalume, Israfel, Eulalie, etc. Most of the time,
these words are used to indicate his late wife. Arabesque (that attracts
attention though it is not directly related to Arabic) is used in the title of
Poe’s collection of short stories: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
(1840). CL is of great help to understand such titles.
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But one tends to ask ‘Does CL focus on the life of the author and
his relation to other writers at the same age?’ This approach, if used,
excludes the literary text. The opposite is to concentrate on the text- the
focus of literary approaches as formalism and new criticism.
Any approach employed in analysing the literary text (say,
formalistic, structuralist, archetypical, biographical, psychological,
feminist, deconstructionist or comparative) is a method of teaching. CL,
this paper assumes, is an efficient way of conveying, transferring and
involving foreign learners of English in the literary experience. CL gets
its importance from the social and scientific developments: globalisation,
democracy, interaction of cultures, business transaction, and tolerance
towards the other. When the Swedish Academy of Letters, for example,
commented (quoted worldwide) on the work of Naguib Mahfouz (19112006) that "through works rich in nature- now clear-sightedly realistic,
now evocatively ambiguous- has formed an Arabic narrative art that
applies to all mankind." Mahfouz accordingly transformed the local
colour of a Cairene community to a universal appeal.
As an academic discipline, CL has various ramifications. Some
comparatists like Carre (quoted in Sarahan 1983: 30) think that it is a
branch of literary history that studies the relationships among nations and
writers. This is an attempt to define and throw light on the field of CL. It
studies the relationship between national and international literature or
vice versa (Rasheed, 1983: 50). Thus, it relates between writers who
write similar things in their writings but differ in their cultures and
languages. It tries to lessen the overtoning of nationalism. It looks for
universalities in literature. It pays no attention to barriers of language,
nation, race, ideas, and biases. It looks at literature as the product of
humanity (Wazzan, 1985:15). According to The Oxford Companion to
English Literature, CL ‘aims at the study of literary works and traditions
of more than one nation or language’ to permit fuller understating of
international literary movements and affiliations. It crosses frontiers in
search of cross-cultural correspondences (Drabble, 2000: 225). It can also
be seen as the comparison of one literature with other spheres of human
expression, e.g. science, religion, arts, music, philosophy, psychology,
etc. Unlike CL, national literatures like Arabic or English are defined
linguistically and nationally. Such a literature is not without a cultural
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Comparative Literature: Its Implications for Yemeni Learners of English
aspect. It is expressed by means of language, which is a human activity
whose base is linguistic and social factors.
CL involves more than one language or culture to find out
commonalities or contrasts at least between two writers. CL is associated
with the mutual influence of literary trends, forms, thoughts, themes,
situations and characters in more than one culture. CL is tied to cultural
links that connect different nations culturally, intellectually and socially.
The problem that arises is about the writers who write in the same
language, say English, but belong to different backgrounds such as
Arabic, British, Indian, African, Canadian, Australian, or Jewish. Others
write in different local languages as in India but their culture is similar as
Indians. The paper considers culture as the main criterion for CL though
language is no doubt a factor. The approaches that impose themselves on
the study of CL are the study of (1) themes, myths, 2) genres, forms (3)
movements, eras (Wazzan, 1987: 11).
The approaches then can be seen from the point of (1) general
trends, (2) direct influence (the French documentary school), or (3)
historical perspective- scholarly studies. Under the general trends and
movements that spread every now and then in the history of literature
(e.g. Romanticism, realism, naturalism, impressionism, modernism,
existentialism, and post modernism), one can think of writers who write
in different languages and from different backgrounds as Nietzsche
(1844-1900), Heidegger (1889-1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980),
Albert Camus (1913-1960), and Edward Said (1935-2003). A number of
writers wrote in similar moods (absurd drama or naturalism) as in Samuel
Beckett (1906-1989) and Harold Pinter (1930- ), Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
and Naguib Mahfouz, etc. Such trends and schools of thoughts spread
across cultures and nations. Since CL is ‘interdisciplinary’ or ‘transnational’, it crosses linguistic, ethnic, and political boundaries (Bassnett
1993). The reading is not within a single literature, but making
associations, connections and similarities with great open space of
literature with a capital L. CL has made world literature commonsense
for people all over the world. People hear of Rubaiyat Omar Khayyam,
Arabian Nights, Naguib Mahfouz’s novels, Goethe’s Faust,
Dostoevsky’s, Fluabert’s Madame Bovary, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House,
Crime and Punishment, Cervantes Don Quixote (1605), Shakespeare’s
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Ayid Sharyan
tragedies, etc. This has been made easier by marketing of books,
availability of translations and CL studies that promote understanding and
encourage sharing commonalties.
The above examination shows CL as the field of critics, literary
historians and teachers who investigate the reality of national and
international literatures and their connections with each other. For
teachers, it is indispensable to link the national literature with that of
other nations so as to:
(a) Promote a healthy attitude towards the alien culture,
(b) Build trust in one’s own culture as well as in the other,
(c) Reduce intolerance, narrow-mindedness, chauvinism and biases,
and
(d) Bring out some kind of unity in diversity.
CL helps the teacher to bridge the gap between the students’
previous knowledge and the target literature to allow sifting information,
trust and understanding to overcome psychological resistance to foreign
language-cum-literature as well the culture that it embodies. This
resistance results in misunderstanding or gap of communication between
teacher and students that we often hear about teachers of English
Literature who have no acquaintance with Arabic literature or students’
cultural background. Due to this resistance, students feel that English
literature poses some threat to their national or cultural identity. The
result is obvious: little learning in the absence of CL that does some kind
of fine-tuning to the target language, culture and literature.
2.0 Comparative Literature in Practice
Literary texts are inherently related as the examples above show but the
teaching methods in literature are not systematic as in language (e.g.
grammar translation method, direct method, audio-visual method,
communicative approach, etc). Due to the dearth of investigations in
methods of teaching literature, this paper proposes CL as a method that
can be employed in teaching foreign learners of English effectively. It
relies heavily on personal experience in the field of teaching literature to
Yemeni students more than theory. It is found out that this teaching
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approach is more efficient and yields a better result and high achievement
on the part of learners. Since CL refers to the study of texts across
cultures, the paper presents some examples that can be used for
comparison while teaching Arab students. This is because the original
contribution of CL is in ‘placing and juxtaposing texts in order to create
new readings across cultures,’ (Bassnett 1993). These texts are
considered side by side to create a greater understanding of works,
authors, and literary traditions. This is necessary not only to understand
the foreign literature but even the national literature. Bassnett (1993: 24)
is of the opinion that, ‘We do not know ourselves when we know only
ourselves’.
One may ask how CL can be applied to teaching English to
Yemeni Learners or Arab learners for that matter. It is usual for teachers
of literature to link two or more literary texts whether in the same culture
(as inter-textuality implies) or with the students’ culture. It is inevitable if
one is to discuss the ‘zeitgeist’ or ‘episteme’ of a certain period not to
find analogous relationship among various literatures and hence not to
touch on CL.
The comparison can be carried out on the basis of theme, character,
form, culture, style or language. Sometimes teachers find it necessary to
compare similarities of characters in various literary texts on the basis of:
thinking, ir/religious, in/extrovert, jealous, vulgar, stupid, oppressed,
split-personality, hesitant, or wronged; strangers or gamblers. Sometimes
the comparison is on the basis of profession: priest, soldier, journalist,
servant, lawyer, diplomat, etc. (Jabar, 1983: 42). A literary work can be
compared from the point of view of themes and motifs. Like character
analysis, theme allows grouping of literary texts regardless of their
background. Form of the work of literature allows comparison: ode,
ballad, autobiographies, pastoral poems, adventures, comedy, tragedy,
elegies, didactic stories, etc. Structural devices, sense and sound devices
are almost universal. They permit comparison: myth, legend, irony,
parody, burlesque, fable, parable, allegories, symbols, metaphor, simile,
personification, alliteration, assonance and consonance (Jabar, 1983: 4445).
Discussing Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart compels the
teacher to think of W. B. Yeats’s "The Second Coming":
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Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. (Line
3)
Similar to this is the origin of the titles of Shaw’s Arms and the
Man and Hemingway’s For whom the Bell Tolls that are allusions to
some previous texts by John Donne (1572-1631) and Virgil (70-19 BC)
respectively. Forster’s A Passage To India is directly related to
Whitman’s “Passage to India”. While Whitman’s poem is optimistic,
Forester’s novel ends (last page) with a bleak tone: everything [horses,
mountains, earth, sky, etc.] said in their hundred voices, ‘No, not
yet…No, not there.’ One cannot help these comparisons while analysing
similar or dissimilar ideas.
Comparative studies are found in examples like "a study of the
impacts of Ibsen on modernist drama". One finds some relation between
Ibsen and G.B. Shaw. Some would study the influence of T.S. Eliot on
W.H. Auden or Pound on Eliot. Others may study the influence of
Coleridge on Wordsworth. But to find direct influence which is the
French-oriented school of CL is not easy to fulfil (Sarhan, 1983). It can
be between Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Alive Son of Awake) by Ibn al-Taufil
(1100?-1185; Higria 494?-581) and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe but it
needs some kind of documentation and scholarly studies to trace
influence. One may study the Romantic Movement in Europe and its
influence on the Arab World. The study of Puritanism and its influence
on literature in Britain and America is a valid topic for CL. But these
studies are not directly relevant to a teacher of literature for Arab
students.
A closer topic is to investigate the relationship between an Arab
writer and a foreign writer. For example, Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
and Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) can be compared on the basis of their
naturalistic viewpoints. What binds the two is the naturalistic mode of
presentation of their characters. Thus a topic can be phrased like "The
naturalistic approach of Dreiser and Mahfouz as realized in their
characters and environments" (Razzq, 1991). This can investigate the
viewpoints of the two novelists towards environment, heredity and the
gloomy aspect of life. One finds this in Mahfouz’s bidaya wa nihaia (The
Beginning and the End; 1945), al-thulathiyya (The Trilogy 1957) and
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Sister Carrie (1900). Like Mahfouz’s novels, Dreiser in Sister Carrie
recounts the story of a small-town girl who moves to Chicago and
eventually becomes a Broadway star in New York City. The novel
depicts explicit treatment of sexual issues. Khat is a short story by Dreiser
too. While passing by Hodidah (Yemen) to Russia, he noticed Yemeni
life and their heavily use of khat (a plant commonly used in Yemen as a
form of stimulant; Yemenis chew it usually in the afternoon till the
evening indoors and outdoors. Khat similarly recounts a gloomy setting
(Hodidah); it tells the story of a beggar who is a khat addict. He runs after
money only to satisfy his basic drive for Khat. Mahfouz’s novels can be
compared also with Steinbeck’s novels: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice
and Men, Tortilla Flat, Zuqaq al Midaq (1947; Midaq Alley), al-liss wal
kilab (trans. The Thief and the Dogs) and Miramar (trans. Miramar).
Mahfouz and Steinbeck delineate the extreme part of reality through their
focus on the oppressed (Sharyan, 2000).
Steinbeck portrayed the socio-economic changes in America
during 1930s. He is similar to the Yemeni fiction writer Mohammed
Abdulwali (1941-1973). Abdulwali's They Die a Stranger portrays a
Yemeni who migrated to Ethiopia, running away from the socio-political
situation that was characterised by poverty and political oppression. He
opens a small shop in Addis Ababa and dreams of one day returning to
his wife and children in his village back home. But he is unconcerned
about the fate of his many illegitimate children in Ethiopia, as well as
about the political activities of his fellow Yemeni exiles who are plotting
the overthrow of the monarchy in Northern Yemen. In Wish He Doesn’t
Return, Abdulwali deals with a common scene in Yemen during the
Imamate period. Here an immigrant comes back to his home but as a sick
man. He returns sick, carried on the shoulders of some villagers. He is a
dying body without any movement. His children hear about him but they
do not know him for he was making money outside the country. He
appears as a ghost for he is of no use. His return is a kind of burden on
the family. His best days are gone abroad and what is left for his country,
children and wife is only the butt end of his life. When he left he was
strong but when he came he is almost a wreck: no power, youth or sweet
days and his children are unable to recognise him. ‘Steinbeck’s and
Mohammed Abdulwali’s presentation of migration as realized in their
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Ayid Sharyan
novels’ is another topic in CL. The former presented America during the
Great Depression (the end of 1929 until the early 1940s), the latter
presented the migration of Yemenis particularly during the Imamate
Period- this is the period when Yemen was under a royal family
(Imamate Period) that ruled Yemen from its independence from the
Ottoman Empire in 1911 till the 1962 Revolution.
Adultery and sacred marital commitments as a theme can be found
in the writings of different backgrounds such as Gustave Flaubert (18211880), Hawthorne (1804-1864), Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Naguib
Mahfouz (1911-2006). A comparative study would examine adultery in
the four cultural backgrounds. Flaubert, the father of realistic fiction in
France, portrays the dissatisfaction of Emma in Madame Bovary (1857).
He depicts the specific reality of the main characters and the historical
period. Emma the heroine felt disappointed by the Charles Bovary as a
dull husband. She was charmed by Rodolphe and Léon with whom she
had affairs. Emma commits suicide by swallowing arsenic and dies a
horrible death. Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, presents a similar case. Like
Emma, Anna in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1875-1877) is torn between
her dull marriage and a passionate affair with Vronsky, a dashing soldier
for whom she gives up everything. In the end, Anna suffers a tragic fate.
Extramarital affairs figure also in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850),
set in the Puritan Boston of 1600s. The heroine Hester was exiled for
adultery. She must wear a red "A" on her dress. Her lover remained silent
about their passion. Hester atones for her sin through service to others.
Mahfouz’s Zuqaq al midaq (1947; Midaq Alley) depicts the misery of
Hamida, the heroine, who went to the brothel instead of marrying Abbas,
the barber. For a comparatist, these novels offer an extraordinary insight
into the norms and behaviours of varied societies. Nevertheless, these
norms, though varied, are universal.
Such studies represent a particular worldview with specific local
colours though different- linguistically, geographically, historically,
aesthetically. But ‘similarities and commonalities’ are what bind these
types of studies. Interdisciplinary attempts are to cope with a rapidlymoving world in which ideas of culture, language, nation, history and
identity change fast.
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2.1 Teaching Comparative Literature to Yemeni Learners
of English
As a way of teaching, it is tempting for any teacher who is familiar
with Arabic literature to utilise it in conveying his ideas. Eliot’s Prufrock
compares himself to Hamlet and Polonius:
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two… (Line 111-113)
Any teacher who deals with these lines from "The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock" (1915) will not do justice if no reference is made to
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. One cannot do justice to Eliot’s poetry if he does
not refer to the source of the allusions that varies from one culture to
another or from a literary work to another. This is because Eliot believes
a poet is to reflect in his writing the dead poets. This is not the only
example. This kind of comparison is undoubtedly necessary, particularly
when dealing with literary trends and movements as Renaissance
Literature, Restoration Comedies, Neo-classical Literature, Romanticism,
the Victorian novel, Realism, Expressionism, Naturalism, Absurd and
Existentialism. The teacher has no choice but to compare relevant
concepts. Emerson, for instance, met Wordsworth and Coleridge. He
adopted the German philosophy of Transcendentalism, not the
Wordsworthian pantheism. Such movements tempt the teacher to touch
on different topics while dealing with a literary text due to their
relevance. Themes and motifs that are recurrent in many of the literary
works compel the teacher to refer to them. Elements of parallelism, not
influence, can be used as a method of analysis (el-Messari, 1983).
Parallelism, in this context, involves both similarities and dissimilarities,
formal and thematic structures. The binary opposites of Cain/ Abel,
good/evil, Adam/Eve, male/female, war/peace, love/hatred are universal
phenomena. To mention one in one culture is to mention the other in the
other culture.
The use of comparison is used always to draw learners’ attention to
some phenomena as the greedy Jew who is a moneylender. While
teaching Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice (1600), one cannot help
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but refer to the moneylender, who is a Jew. The same motif appears in
Dostoyevsky’s psychological novel Crime and Punishment (1866); the
moneylender (a woman) who was killed with her sister by Raskolnikov is
a Jew. Fagin (the Jew) in Dickens’ Oliver Twist plays the role of a
convincing career criminal to make money instead of interest. These are
not much different from the legend of the Wandering Jew, and Marlowe's
The Jew Of Malta (1623). Barabas, the wealthy Maltese Jew, is not so
much different from Shylock. In both cases the Jews' fortune was
confiscated because Shylock conspired against a Venetian citizen and
Barabas refused to pay a tax to buy off the attacking Turks. As a kind of
revenge, Barabas carries out a series of murders and then betrays the
island to the Turks. Finally, he plots the destruction of the Turks but he
falls victim to his own scheme and dies in a boiling cauldron.
Teaching literature remains an issue in the current practices of
literary criticism. Some consider the text an autonomous entity- no need
for a reference to the life of the author. The psychoanalytic school looks
for the employment of psychological terms and techniques in analysing
the fictional character’s motives. It attempts to find out the relationship
between the text and its author. Some teach literature by focusing on the
ideological aspects as the school of Marxism and New Historicism.
Others opt for an amalgamation of varied schools and develop their own
eclectic method to compare or contrast ideas. One resorts to CL as an
outlet from hazy literature teaching methods. Teaching language in
comparison is more systematic (Sharyan, 2003: 387).
Using CL proves that students feel more confident to deal with the
target literary texts, especially when they are exposed to English literature
for the first time at the university. Some students ask "cannot we find
something better than this text in English literature that is similar to our
belief and culture?" To overcome the alien culture, this paper suggests
that one can begin with the familiar, i.e. native culture, and then move to
the target culture. Moreover, CL is used to widen students' views on other
cultures. If literature is used as a window on the world, CL is a window
that allows two views: inside and outside. Al-Qamri (1991: 9) is of the
opinion that literature is the product of a civilization that reflects in its
development a constructive interaction between cultures. Knowing the
literature in the other culture broadens one’s views of the world. It
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promotes tolerance and understanding of the otherness. Narrow-minded
views as the following do not get their way to students’ minds:
“I have never found one among them (Orientalists)
who could deny that a single shelf of a good
European library was worth the whole nation
literature of India and Arabia. I have certainly never
met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain
that the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be
compared to that of the great European nation.”
Macaulay (1835; quoted in Bassnett, 1993: 17).
This superiority complex does not lead to building confidence
across cultures. This is not only a rare case but it has its base in the
literature of the west itself. It is recurrent in Congreve’s The Way of the
World:
Let Mahometan fools
Live by heathenish rules,
And be damned over tea-cups and coffee. (Act IV, Scene XI)
It is further illustrated in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe who says to
Xury ‘if you [Xury] will be faithful to me, I'll make you a great man; but
if you will not stroke your face to be true to me" - that is, swear by
Mahomet and his father's beard - "I must throw you into the sea too,"
(Defoe, (ed) 2007:111)). But the moment he heard the boy calling
"Master, master, a ship with a sail!" Robinson thought of Xury as a
"foolish boy" (ibid: 117). Then he sold Xury after this promise when he
met the Portuguese Captain who offered him a free journey to Brazil.
Xury can be free on the condition that he has to convert to Christianity
and that is after serving ten years as a slave. When Crusoe met Friday
after a long time of loneliness, he thought of him as a slave. The first
word Friday was taught after ‘Yes and No’ is ‘Master’ to the extent that
he thought it is the name of Crusoe (ibid: 240). This slave-master
relationship of Crusoe and Xury and Friday makes one think of the
superiority complex that was expressed above. This intolerance makes
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students feel detached from English literature. Such a view is what led
thinkers as Edward Said (1935-2003) to study the east in the western
literature. His famous work Orientalism (1978) set out the ways in which
Europe saw and sneered at the Orient. Orientalism in Said's terms is a
way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's
special place in Western Experience. It constitutes the attitudes held by
19th-century Western scholars that created fundamental misperceptions
in their works on the works of the Eastern countries. These literary works
were used by the West in building a rationale for imperialism. For the
West, the East (Orient) is depicted as either charming or frightening. In
both cases the West takes arms against the East. They want to invade the
east because it is the source of charm, wealth, raw material, tradition, and
mild climate. They look at the East as frightening and they also want to
invade it to protect themselves from the danger of the East (Rasheed,
1983: 51). This is what is happening during the days of colonisation for
most part of the East- the case of Iraq in 2007 is a case in point.
But the paper attempts to overlook such views and tries to bring
together diversities, particularly in the area of teaching for idealistic and
pragmatic purposes. This makes students read from their perspective- not
necessarily to boast or claim superiority over other cultures.
This does not mean the Orient was not mentioned in a positive
sense. Lady Macbeth, for example, refers to Arabia as a source of best
perfume, “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this [her] little
hand” (Act 5, Scene 1). Wordsworth in The Solitary Reaper admires the
nightingale that sings for a group of "travellers in …Among Arabian
sands" (Line 10-11). Sergius in Shaw’s Arms and the Man bets his "best
charger against an Arab mare for Raina that Nicola finds the coat in the
blue closet." And Catherine stresses the value of an Arab mare, saying to
her husband "Dont be foolish, Paul. An Arabian mare will cost you
50,000 levas," (Act II). This shows they refer to Arabs in a positive sense.
A teacher of literature would make use of comparison even if the
course was not a comparative one. For example to teach figures of speech
(e.g. simile, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, etc.) for first level
students at the Department of English is not easy unless one gets the help
of students’ native literature (e.g. ‫)ﺁﻨﺎ ﺍﻟﺒﺤﺭ ﻓﻲ ﺃﺤﺸﺎﺌﻪ ﺍﻟﺩﺭ ﻜﺎﻤﻥ ﻓﻬل ﺴـﺄﻟﻭﺍ‬.
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‫ ﺍﻟﻐـﻭﺍﺹ ﻋـﻥ ﺼـﺩﻓﺎﺘﻲ‬One has no choice when teaching the romantic
movement in Britain but to talk about the movement in other parts of
Europe or America. Sometimes one refers to the movement in modern
Arabic literature. Neo-classical thoughts are not too far from the
traditionalists in the 20th century Arabic literature. To explain proverbs
like ‘Time is Money’ is not easily digested because it connotes
materialism. For an Arab ‘Time is Gold’ that is both valuable and
durable; or "time is like a double-edged sword unless you cut it cuts you".
An English simile, in Robert Burns' A Red Rose, goes like this,
‘My Love is like a red, red rose
That newly sprang in June.’ (Line 1-2)
For an Arab a "woman is like a moon". She is remote, more
durable and more valuable unlike the one in the previous example who is
probably to be enjoyed and thrown. This reveals the distinctive
worldview of an Arabic speaker. Not to care for this conceptual
differences results in misunderstanding and a breakdown of
communication between the sender and the receiver of the information.
CL, the paper believes, may solve the problem. Those who do not know
the students' mother-tongue literature meet challenges of disagreement.
These examples demonstrate the importance of students’ national
literature and culture in teaching a foreign literature. An English teacher,
for example, spends a long time explaining the word ‘fable’ for students
but in vain. One example of Ibn al-Muqaffa’s fables makes the point
clear. Other non-Arab teachers find it difficult to teach The Way of the
World due to derogatory view mentioned above.
In teaching poetry, one has a wider scope than novel or drama. A
number of lines in the national or foreign literature echo each other. The
conflict in the mind of the ancient mariner in Coleridge's The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner resembles the trouble condition of the knight in Keats’s
La Belle Dame Sans Merci for the two are seen as ballads. The old lonely
man who holds the wedding guest with his glittering eyes is a strange old
man with powerful eyesight in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.
To discuss poetry that is heavily loaded with religious implications is
likely to cause some kind of mistrust in the target literature and its
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Ayid Sharyan
ideology, particularly in Yemen. Experience in the field shows that
poems like Blake’s’ The Lamb or The Tyger, Wordsworth’s The World Is
Too Much With Us, Milton’s Paradise Lost are likely to cause some kind
of misunderstanding if taught without comparisons to mother tongue
literature and ideology. The religious aspect can be dealt with easily if
compared to students’ religion. It reflects some kind of solidarity with the
other more than difference if used judiciously. As an example of using
students’ culture, examine the following lines from John Milton’s On His
Blindness when they are compared to some lines form the Holy
Qura’an:
Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait. (Line 12-14)
They are easy to teach if compared to this verse from the Holy Qura’an:
‫ ]ﻭﻟﻪ ﻤﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺴﻤﺎﻭﺍﺕ ﻭﺍﻷﺭﺽ ﻭﻤﻥ ﻋﻨﺩﻩ ﻻ ﻴﺴﺘﻜﺒﺭﻭﻥ ﻋﻥ ﻋﺒﺎﺩﺘﻪ‬:‫ﻗﺎل ﺍﷲ ﺘﻌﺎﻟﻰ‬
.(20-19 ‫ )ﺍﻷﻨﺒﻴﺎﺀ‬.[‫ ﻴﺴﺒﺤﻭﻥ ﺍﻟﻠﻴل ﻭﺍﻟﻨﻬﺎﺭ ﻻ ﻴﻔﺘﺭﻭﻥ‬.‫ﻭﻻ ﻴﺴﺘﺤﺴﺭﻭﻥ‬
19. To Him belongs whosoever is in the heavens and on earth.
And those who are near Him (i.e. the angles) are not too
proud to worship Him, nor are they weary (of His
worship).
20. They (i.e. the angels) glorify His Praises night and day,
(and) they never slacken (to do so).
(Translation of the Holy Qura’an issued by the Presidency of
Islamic Researchers, Ifta, Call and Guidance, Riyadh).
Similarly Paradise Lost would not be easy to teach to Yemeni
students unless it is compared to the fall of man in Islam. I tried teaching
it with comparison of verses from Surat AL-Ara ’f (verses 12-27). Some
points can be discussed like Adam was misled by her to have the
forbidden fruit and to go with her. She is the culprit, i.e. ‘woman’.
Perhaps Hamlet alludes to that when he says ‘Frailty, thy name is
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woman!’ (Hamlet, ACT I, SCENE II). Thus she is the source of all
mankind’s suffering and the loss of the Garden of Eden. But this is not
the way it was presented in Islam. In the Islamic view Adam and Eve are
equally guilty:
‫ ]ﻭﻴﺎ ﺁﺩﻡ ﺍﺴﻜﻥ ﺃﻨﺕ ﻭﺯﻭﺠﻙ ﺍﻟﺠﻨﺔ ﻓﻜﻼ ﻤﻥ ﺤﻴﺙ‬:‫ﻗﺎل ﺍﷲ ﺘﻌﺎﻟﻰ‬
‫ ﻓﻭﺴﻭﺱ ﻟﻬﻤﺎ‬.(19) ‫ﺸﺌﺘﻤﺎ ﻭﻻ ﺘﻘﺭﺒﺎ ﻫﺫﻩ ﺍﻟﺸﺠﺭﺓ ﻓﺘﻜﻭﻨﺎ ﻤﻥ ﺍﻟﻅﺎﻟﻤﻴﻥ‬
‫ﺍﻟﺸﻴﻁﺎﻥ ﻟﻴﺒﺩﻱ ﻟﻬﻤﺎ ﻤﺎ ﻭﺭﻱ ﻋﻨﻬﻤﺎ ﻤﻥ ﺴﻭﺁﺘﻬﻤﺎ ﻭﻗﺎل ﻤﺎ ﻨﻬﺎﻜﻤﺎ‬
‫ﺭﺒﻜﻤﺎ ﻋﻥ ﻫﺫﻩ ﺍﻟﺸﺠﺭﺓ ﺇﻻ ﺃﻥ ﺘﻜﻭﻨﺎ ﻤﻠﻜﻴﻥ ﺃﻭ ﺘﻜﻭﻨﺎ ﻤﻥ ﺍﻟﺨﺎﻟﺩﻴﻥ‬
.20-19 ‫([ ﺍﻷﻋﺭﺍﻑ‬2)
This is an interpretation of the verses (Ibid):
19. "And O Adam! Dwell you and your wife in Paradise, and
eat thereof as you both wish, but approach not this tree
otherwise you both will be of the Zdlimun (unjust and wrongdoers)."
20. Then Shaitan (Satan) whispered suggestions to them both
in order to uncover that which was hidden from them of their
private parts (before); he said: "Your Lord did not forbid you
this tree save that you should become angels or become of the
immortals." Surat AL-Ara ’f (verses 19-20).
The second interesting point is that Milton said Christ is a man:
…With loss of Eden, till one greater Man…
This is similar to the Islamic view that Christ is a great Prophet but
he is a man after all not a God or Son of God. Understanding seems better
than teaching it without referring to the students’ culture.
Like poetry that can be supported from Arabic, Western drama that
employs myth finds its echo, particularly in the 20th century. Shaw’s
Pygmalion (1913) that describes the transformation of a Cockney flower
girl into a fine lady at the hands of a cynical and slightly misanthropic
phonetician has an equivalent in Arabic literature. Tawfiq Al-Hakim
treated the same theme in his play Pygmalion (1942). The two
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Ayid Sharyan
playwrights base their plays on the Greek legend of Pygmalion and
Galatea: The myth of a sculptor who fell in love with a statue of the
beautiful woman and eventually fell madly in love with it. Similar to
Pygmalion, Oedipus Rex has fascinated some 20th century Arab
playwrights. Ali Ahmad Bakathir’s1 Oedipus Tragedy (1949) and Tawfiq
Al-Hakim’s Oedipus the King (1978) are under the influence of
Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex (Wazzan, 1985: 113-131).
2.2 Examples of Comparative Literature
To give an example of exploiting CL in classroom learning
situations, the paper gives the following example from the novel to
illustrate the function and usefulness of this field.
2.2.1 Mahfouz's bidaya wa nihaia (trans. The Beginning and
the End) and Hardy’s The Return of the Native
Through teaching Yemeni students the 19th century novel, the
researcher finds it useful to choose a text like The Return of the Native
(1878) by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). This novel is easily compared
with Mahfouz's bidaya wa nihaia (1949; trans The Beginning and the
End). This tells the story of a lower middle-class family- a mother and
her four children. The protagonists are Nafissa and Hassanein. Hassanein
is the youngest son who gets his feet into a War College. He struggles
climbing the social ladder. He becomes an officer. He suffers from this
inner guilt of how his poverty-stricken past might threaten his chance of
marrying the Bey's daughter. Nafissa is seduced by the grocer’s son who
played with her emotions and misused her sexually, hoping to marry her
someday. Towards the end of the novel, Hassanein is called to the police
station to be informed that his sister has been found in a brothel. Her
brother forces her to commit suicide by drowning herself in the Nile. He
also drowns out of shame. The story lasts about three to four years. The
gloomy atmosphere and in-depth delineation of characters make this
novel similar to The Return of the Native. The tragic lives of Clym
1
Ali Ahmad Bakathir (1910-1069) is a Yemeni poet and dramatist. He was born
in Indonesia and lived most of his life in Egypt. Because he masters both Arabic
and English, he translated a number of works into Arabic. He is a leading figure
in free verse and historical drama.
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Yeobright, Eustacia Vye, Hassanein and Nafissa are vividly presented.
Eustacia and Nafissa are drowned at the end of the two novels out of
shame. The depiction of a pitiable human struggle is expressed both in
the description of Egdon Heath and the Cairene backward allies of Cairo.
Hassanein suffers greatly in trying to keep his family together. But he
fails. Similarly Clym Yeobright, who returns to settle in his community
and educate them, fails eventually. The four characters are helpless
towards the end of the two novels.
2.2.2 Mahfouz’s al-thulathiyya (trans. The Trilogy) and Dickens’
David Copperfield
al-thulathiyya (trans. The Trilogy 1957) is by Mahfouz (19112006) who was compared to Dostovesky and Franz Kafka (Myers, 1986).
There are a lot of similarities in al-thulathiyya and Charles Dickens’
David Copperfield (1849-50). al-thulathiyya, as a saga, is of three novels:
‘Bahyan al Qasryan’ (1956; Palace of Walk), ‘Qasr al Shaoq’ (1957;
Palace of Desire), and ‘al Sukariyya ’ (1957; Sugar Street). The saga
conveys a panorama of colourful evocations of events in the lives of
several generations of a middle-class Cairo family. The events evolve
around al-Sayyid, the main character in the three novels, and his family.
Changes take place in their lives and reflect the transformations in all
walks of life. The Trilogy portrays the transformations of the Egyptian
society from different viewpoints: political, economic and cultural. In
addition, the saga covers a wide range of topics as the Egyptian
Revolution, the effects of modernisation on cultural and religious values
and the changing attitudes towards women, education and science. It also
throws light on similar issues in other Arab countries. These narratives
exhibit and comment on these issues through the significant experiences.
The Trilogy portrays this middle class Cairo family from 1917 to 1944.
The background presents Egypt in transition, as we have the USA in
transition in Dos Passos and Steinbeck’s fiction or as we have the
Victorian period in David Copperfield.
David Copperfield is a semi-autobiographical novel like althulathiyya. Both reflect a realistic description of a historical period that
span over fifty years. The main characters in both works are similar. In
David Copperfield, the hero is an orphan. David is rescued from his cruel
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stepfather, the headmaster. He had to work as a boy labourer in London.
As Mahfouz depicts Egypt before and during the revolution, Dickens
records the Victorian England through the description of David's
experiences: abusive treatment of children. Al-Sayyid is in a way similar
to Mr. Murdstone, the stepfather of David. The brutal environment they
create is common for both works. The two stories trace the early
childhood and ill-treatment of David and Kamal.
2.2.3 Hayy ibn Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe
Hayy ibn Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe reflect CL in practice.
Hayy ibn Yaqzan is written by Ibn al-Taufil (1100?-1185; Higria 494?581). (Hayy means the mind that is conscious). Ibn Yaqzan (Son of
Awake) is a metonymy for God who does not sleep. As an allegory, Hayy
ibn Yaqzan shows how one can discover Almighty without a prophet or
community. Through rational and critical inquiry into what surrounds
him, he is able to reason the driving force that moves animate and
inanimate things in the cosmos.
Hayy ibn Yaqzan was translated into different European languages
since the early fourteenth century (Hilal, 1973). It is of two parts:
introduction and the main text. This famous philosophical narrative deals
with a child who was left alone on a desolate island. A deer fed him till
he was about seven years. Then it died. He did not know the meaning of
death. He thought it would wake up. After waiting for a long time, he
concluded that it would never come back to life. When he (Hayy) became
22, he began to investigate the natural scenes. He observed the ability of
animate things, and the inability of inanimate things, to move. But some
inanimate things make some movements as plants and fire. Unlike stones,
they also grow and die. He concludes that objects have soul and matter.
Then he began to think about heavenly objects. When he becomes around
30 years old, he meditates on the sky that stretches in an unlimited area.
Such an analytic inquiry into the arrangement of objects and concepts
into a unified system allows him to speculate on the nature of planets that
rise, set and move together in a circular way.
Hayy developed his thinking from the particular to the general till
he began to think about the cosmos as a whole. He started to think if
every action exists because of someone or something that caused it, then
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the cosmos exists because something or someone has caused it. It cannot
exist without a creator. One can see that Hayy began to think about the
physical before the metaphysical.
He infers things not only by his senses but also by some invisible
ability: soul. Since the soul is not concrete it must live forever. It cannot
vanish because it does not have physical being. He construes that the soul
does not know God as long as it is in the dying body. Having left the
body, the virtuous soul realises God. Then he deduces that the soul does
not realise God in the hereafter unless it recognises Him in its earthly
existence. Here Hayy begins to practise some kind of worship to acquaint
himself with the Creator before the death of his soul. For this, he attempts
to approach the state of his death.
Whenever he needed food, he found other creatures look for basic
needs but unaware of the ultimate self, self-actualization or the spiritual
nature of existence. He thought of himself as different. He spends long
time meditating over his existence, the existence of other creaturesanimate and inanimate and the difference between them. When reflecting,
he sees invisible things that cannot be described: the happiness obtained
by the end of the narrative.
The account of Hayy ends with another person Asalan, a friend of
the governor of a neighbouring island. Asalan is a pious person who
prefers to be alone and worship God. He decides to migrate to a
neighbouring isolated island where Hayy is living. When Asalan saw
Hayy, he thought Hayy is a hermit on this island like him. Hayy was
surprised for this is the first time to see the shape of human beings.
Asalan was surprised to find a man like Hayy who does not know
anything. Asalan tried to teach Hayy human language. Both were happy
about the end they arrived at- with regard to the creator. After Hayy knew
language, Asalan told him about the neighbouring island and the situation
of people there. Hayy had a desire to preach those people. The two
friends went to the neighbouring island and started to preach the elite
who were furious about what they heard from Hayy and Asalan. The two
preachers were convinced that there was no hope of teaching the laity if
the elite did not understand those teachings. Asalan left with Hayy and
that was their way of teaching; Asalan followed the method of Hayy till
they died (Farukh, 1982: 8-30).
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Robinson Crusoe is not very different from Hayy ibn Yaqzan. The
two stories begin as autobiographical narration of some real story.
Robinson Crusoe was claimed to be based on some real story of a sailor
according to Defoe. Similarly Hayy ibn Yaqzan begins with an
assumption that a woman who had married secretly gave birth to a child.
Because she was afraid of her brother, the king, she put the child in a box
and threw him to the water till he found his way to an isolated island to
be cared for by a deer. Unlike Hayy, Robinson came to the island when
he was more than twenty years old. On the island he began to think quite
a lot of repentance and the original sin. This religious aspect brings him
closer to Hayy. The spiritual quest is the base for both characters that can
be classified as stories of spiritual development for Hayy and Robinson.
The successful attempt to care for themselves and to adjust to the
surrounding environment is a common feature in both. Both spent long
time on the isolated island (Robinson 28 years and Hayy about fifty
years). Loneliness and isolation dominate the two narratives that seem to
neglect the role of women. The presence of women is limited in Robinson
Crusoe for they were mentioned only in passing (Robinson's mother,
sister or wife). The two stories end in different tones. Though both
characters came back to land, each took a different direction. While
Robinson began another story about the further adventures of Robinson
Crusoe, Hayy confined himself to his island.
This comparison provokes students to have an innovative reading
due to the full participation because of the story they know. And hence
their literature and the foreign literatures are reinforced.
3.0 Conclusion
The paper has discussed CL from the perspective of its use as a
means of teaching English literature for EFL. It gives numerous
references to literary works that can be compared or referred to when
teaching English literature to Yemeni Learners of English. The paper
suggests that CL be offered as an independent course for students of the
Faculty of Education who are not exposed to translation, literary history
or literary criticism, at least at Sana'a University. As a conclusion one can
find that using CL in teaching literature widens the scope of learners to
avoid misunderstanding that results in breaking down of communication
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between teachers and students in most cases; records at our Department
reflect that. CL creates a healthy attitude to learning a foreign language
that is rooted in its culture. CL, as described above, raises students’
awareness of the relationship between Arabic and English literature. It
sharpens their critical thinking to weigh the pros and cons, develop
independent learning on the long run and enhance learning in L2.
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